PEOPLE often ask me where exactly is Hell’s Waiting Room, the pub I use in New Brighton.
Well, you’ll just have to work it out, I’m afraid.
But be assured, it is a real place, just not the real name.
Very few of the names in this blog are real, though, believe me, all the characters, bars, restaurants etc mentioned truly exist. What happens is real too, though I have to tone it down a bit.

Hell’s Waiting Room is not difficult to find. If you think you’ve stumbled across the place then just mention its made-up name to the bar staff and they will either confirm or deny you have reached this legendary bar of altered reality.
What is it like? Well, if anyone has watched Early Doors, the BBC2 sitcom, the Waiting Room is a bit like the pub featured in that, only funnier and more eccentric.
As usual, I’ve been in there quite a bit recently. We all helped the landlady, Eleganta Chignon, celebrate her 60th birthday, for instance.
And I was in there on Saturday night, having a few launch drinks prior to going on to Hoylake, where the Bacardi Queen held her birthday bash.
It was a distressing couple of hours in the pub for me, actually, because I was convinced that my wallet had gone missing while in there.
There was thirty quid in it, plus all my cards, and I couldn’t bear the prospect of such a loss, because it was only six months ago that my previous wallet had gone missing, with all the inconvenience that involves.
Also, the wallet I thought I’d lost on Saturday was an old one that had previously belonged to my dad, who died two years ago. It is just about the only possession of his I have left to remember him by.
After turning the pub upside down in a frantic search for this tatty old wallet, I then went back to my flat and did the same there … in case I had, after all, left it at home.
Well, there was a knock at the door and it was Swampy, the banjo-player from the pub, come to tell me that the panic was over and my wallet had turned up.
Billy Bustimes had put it in his pocket by mistake, would you believe, thinking it was his own.
Well, he has cataracts so I guess I can forgive him, though I did, of course, let him have a tirade of cussing for putting me through all that stress.
Even if the wallet hadn’t turned up, I wouldn’t have been left penniless for the trip to Hoylake, because Annette Kalms instantly lent me £20 as soon as she became aware of my predicament.
After all that kerfuffle, we were faced with the problem of how to get all the New Brighton Massive over to Hoylake and in to Jack Rabbit Slims, the trendoid music bar which the Bacardi Queen had chosen for her birthday do.
In the end, Me and Daddy Hardman and Billy Bustimes got a lift there from Swampy, who wasn’t drinking that night.
We were a bit late getting the trip underway, however, because Bustimes had toddled off to buy a present (a bottle of Barcardi) and a card for the birthday girl.
Finally we got away, but unfortunately we left some of the girls, including the Barcardi Queen herself and Mandy Mobiles behind in the HBSC bar.
And we had to make a detour so that Daddy - whose idea of style is tracky bottoms, Liverpool shirts and trainers - could call at his winter palace in Seacombe first and slip into something a bit more comfortable.
Or at least something that might get him past the bouncers at Jack Rabbit Slims.
We left the girls, and I think Mandy's beau, Viktor, to make their own way in a taxi. Tallulah Swells couldn’t make it. She had to work behind the bar at the Waiting Room.
It was a bit difficult to get a taxi at that time on Saturday night, but Mandy told the cab controller she was wearing suspenders and had no knickers on. They were round for the pick-up in two minutes flat.
When Mandy arrived at the bar in Hoylake, I can confirm she was indeed wearing suzzies. As to knickers, I don’t know. It doesn’t do to be carrying out too close an inspection of such matters.
But there was a most unfortunate incident just as we lads were entering Jack Rabbit Slims… Billy Bustimes tripped on the kerb and went sprawing arse over tit right in front of the bar’s security staff.
In doing so he smashed the bottle of booze he’s bought for the birthday girl – shards of glass and shiny wet wrapping paper in the gutter, along with Billy’s face. He sure knows how to make an entrance.
Now, disgraceful scenes involving alcohol and collapsed human bodies are common enough spectacles on the pitiless cobbles of New Brighton but they are not very ‘Hoylake’, if you know what I mean.
I must say, however, that the bar’s bouncers were brilliant. They helped Billy to his feet and he slowly regained his composure as he was led inside and shown to our special booth.
Later, he gamely limped out to buy a replacement birthday present for the BC.
It was a great night, as it goes, with a talented young band performing covers as diverse as The Jam’s ‘Town Called Malice’, the Kaiser Chiefs’ ‘I Predict A Riot’, REM’s ‘Losing My Religion’, and – best of all, the crowd went wild! – James’s ‘Sit Down’.
A happy crowd bopped under the giant glitterballs. The BC’s family were there, including her sons Dick and Dom and her daughter Blondie Hotpants. Plus her ex-husband, Don, her sister (who had a Wigan connection) and her on-off-on-off partner Curly Wurzel.
Most of us made the trip back to New Brighton in time for last orders in the Waiting Room, and we were joined by Dr Gyggle, the town’s psychologist and Litherland Lou.
Earlier in the evening those two had been to see the 1970s revival band Crème Brulee at the Floral Pavilion.
Altogether now …. “Hey, New Brighton! Are you ready to RAWK!?”
It was a riotous evening, all in all, and it lasted well into the early hours because we all went off to Plenty Clean Tablecloths, the famous curry house in Egremont.

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